Chapter Five
ARCHER LONAGAN PACED his study, his blood pressure ratcheting up by the minute. How far had he fallen to be sitting around waiting for a phone call from a fucking employee? In his old life, Arch did not wait. People waited for him.
Stopping in front of the window, he sneered at the baked landscape of his Idaho ranch.
Held in a trust for his kids that couldn’t be touched by the government, it had become his hideout from the world after Emma Gallagher, Natalie Nygaard-Brown—and whoever else was in the group he’d dubbed The Invisibles—had turned him into the most hated radio show host on the planet.
At thirty-four, at the top of his game, he’d suddenly become persona non grata, obsolete, too hot to touch.
Just for having sex with a few women who’d practically begged him for it before they’d turned around and called it harassment and rape.
His wife hadn’t cared about the other women before, but she’d bailed with the kids the second the news hit.
Divorce papers had arrived yesterday, and all he could think was good riddance.
There was nothing left for the bitch to take anyway.
Not that her lawyers would find. All of his legitimate assets had gone to the so-called victims, and someone—these damned Invisibles—had cleaned out several of his offshore accounts too.
But his resources were still vast. He’d hired a private investigator to see if he could find any clues about Natalie’s co-conspirators in Switzerland.
One of the other men in Alastor Group—a small club of fallen moguls he’d formed to hunt down those responsible for their change in fortune—had fucked up the kidnapping of her teammate, learning nothing and getting himself killed in the process.
And then two days ago, his PI had dropped a bombshell. “Based on what I’ve found here, I believe Natalie Nygaard-Brown is still alive. I need to do some more digging to confirm, but I should have more info soon.”
So now, Arch waited. He glanced at the old grandfather clock. Hatch was already five minutes late. He slowly relaxed his fists and took a deep breath. It was too hot to jog outside, but as soon as the call was done, he’d go for a swim in his indoor pool.
When his cell phone finally rang, he forced himself to wait for the third ring before answering. “What do you have for me?” he asked without preamble.
“I can now confirm that Natalie Nygaard-Brown’s death was falsified. She may have succumbed to her wounds since then, but she left the hospital in Lucerne very much alive.”
Disappointing. But rationally, he recognized that a dead woman couldn’t provide information. At least now they had a lead.
Hatch filled him in on what he’d learned about how Natalie faked her own death, clearly with help. “There was a man here who identified himself as her fiancé, and I tracked him down. Ford Beaumont runs the European office of his family’s personal security firm, Beaumont & Associates.”
Archer’s pulse picked up. “Is she with him?”
“No, sir.” The PI cleared his throat. “Actually, last I checked, he was in jail awaiting trial for murder.”
“What the fuck?”
“My thoughts exactly, but get this. The man he’s accused of killing was actually B&A’s client, a doctor for a crime boss in Geneva. About a month ago, the doc supposedly jumped off a boat in the Med, and his body hasn’t been found.”
“You think Beaumont helped this man fake his death too?”
“It seems very likely,” Hatch said. “If you want me to continue, I’ll head to Geneva next.”
Finally, some actionable intel. “Do it. But from now on you report to Mace.”
“Sir?” Hatch sounded confused.
Harrison Wallace, aka Mace—a disgraced physician who’d falsified clinical trial data—was an impatient bastard. Might as well make him feel useful while Archer focused on more…strategic initiatives.
Two fucking weeks. The slowest two weeks of Ford’s life. Technically two weeks and three days, but who’d been counting?
Him. Every goddamned minute.
The outer door of the jail opened and he crossed the threshold, taking a deep breath of freedom. The bright afternoon sun and warm breeze on his skin felt amazing, but he didn’t take a second to bask, or slow his roll even a little.
He wanted the hell away from this place.
Away from the stench of sweat, metal, industrial cleaning products, and desperation.
Away from the overcrowded spaces, being indoors for twenty-three hours a day, doing his best to keep his head down and avoid conflict.
Away from lying in a narrow bed, worrying about Natalie and…
thinking about her in other ways. Ways that made him uncomfortable to admit, but that had become necessary for getting himself through this hell.
Her beautiful smile, her playful nature, and her determination to right the wrongs of the world made her an embodiment of sunshine in a place where he’d found little joy.
Dreaming of her had become his mental escape from the grim days and long nights, even though it was a hell of a different kind.
Jail in Switzerland might be nicer than in the US, but it was still confinement.
Thankfully, his cellmate had been a scared twenty-year-old who avoided talking as much as possible. Small favor.
Ford’s assistant Sabine had visited every day, updating him on the news, and assuring him that Henri still checked in nightly. His lawyer had also come regularly, keeping him abreast of her efforts to free him.
According to the prosecuting attorney, being a foreigner had made Ford a flight risk, so he’d been denied bail and put in a cell, all based on a bloody knife found by the couple who cleaned his house once a week. The “murder weapon” must have been planted either by the police or Deschamps’ men.
Unfortunately, Ford couldn’t prove his innocence without revealing Henri’s whereabouts—likely the outcome someone had been hoping for—so he’d stayed in jail until his lawyers found a way to show that the blood on the knife was “clean.” It had been a match for Henri, but the bodily tissue had been from a pig.
Given that, along with the lack of a body and no obvious motive, prosecutors had been forced to admit that it looked like a setup and drop the charges.
Whoever had framed Ford likely hadn’t expected the evidence to pass muster for long. Just long enough to get the information they needed. Since their ploy had failed, no doubt they’d look for another way to get Henri’s location.
Ford had covered the doctor’s tracks well, but the press’s renewed interest in the case wasn’t ideal.
With Henri’s pictures back in the news, Ford worried that someone might recognize the man at the grocery store or farmer’s market, despite the subtle changes he’d made to his appearance.
Probably not a concern so far from Geneva, but the story was lurid enough to reach outlets beyond Switzerland’s borders.
According to the scenario Ford had devised, the doctor had canceled his protection services, taken out the boat he kept docked in Menton—on the French border with Italy—dropped anchor several miles from shore, and jumped into the Mediterranean.
He’d even left behind a note, professing his grief over the loss of his wife.
Of course, given the circumstances of her death, there was much debate over whether Henri had staged his own death, or the appearance of a suicide was a cover for his murder. Either way, the resurgence of news coverage increased the danger of discovery for both Henri and Natalie.
Ford could only hope his release would cause the media to move on. Walking quickly away from the jail with his head held high, he hopped into the passenger seat of Sabine’s Dacia Duster, and didn’t release a full breath until they were a couple kilometers away.
“You okay?” Sabine finally asked in French. She understood English, but felt less confident speaking it.
Thanks to his Parisian grandfather—and a summer exchange to Montpellier in college—he’d been a decent French speaker before moving to Switzerland, but after three years in Geneva, it came naturally to him. “Better now. Did you sweep the car?”
She nodded. “I’m glad they let you go before the weekend.”
“Me too.” He relaxed into the seat, but still censored his words out of habit and caution. “I need to check on my…clients.” He hadn’t intended to drop Natalie on Henri’s doorstep and disappear until the first week of August.
She was probably going out of her mind stuck in the country without access to the outside world, or anything to do. But Deschamps—or whoever had been behind Ford’s arrest—would probably ramp up surveillance now, expecting him to check on Henri after so much time away.
Which meant he had to be patient and careful.
If Deschamps employed a big enough team, it would be nearly impossible for Ford to get to the farmhouse outside of Marseille without being followed.
He couldn’t just run a surveillance detection route and call it good.
They could have people on all the exits out of town, and be watching the trains and buses.
The best option would be one where the guys on stakeout never even realized he’d left. Figuring it out required more brain cells than he had right now. Jail was not exactly a relaxing place to sleep.
“No one who knows you believed you killed Monsieur Michaud,” Sabine said, pulling him back to the present. “And now that the evidence has cleared you, we have already received several calls from people inquiring about helping them disappear.”
Ford groaned. Despite recent evidence to the contrary, he wasn’t generally in the business of faking people’s deaths. And he didn’t want to be. “I assume you told them to look elsewhere.”
“Of course.” She sounded offended that he’d expect otherwise.
“Sorry.” He let his head fall back against the seat. “I couldn’t run this place without you, Sab. Honestly.”
She tsked and shook her head. “You could, but it would be much harder.”
For the first time in weeks, he laughed.
But then he entered his home and could instantly tell that something was wrong.
Not only was Blitz skittish, but there were subtle signs that things had been disturbed.
Things that his landlady Katja would never touch.
Someone with the skills to sidestep his high-end security system had been inside.
According to video footage he pulled up on his alarm app after Sabine drove off, the culprit—a man, based on his height and build—wore a mask and gloves, and hit early this morning while Katja walked the dog. Ford would’ve been impressed if he wasn’t so pissed.
He wasn’t worried about the intruder finding anything useful about Henri. He was smart enough to keep the house sanitized of any clues to the doctor’s whereabouts. But this was another escalation, a violation. Prior to the arrest, Deschamps had only had him followed.
Fuck.
Taking Blitz with him, Ford returned to the main house. Katja had invited him to dinner, and he’d been tired enough to accept, even though she’d stocked his kitchen when she found out he was due to be released.
After checking that no one had entered her home, he let the older woman fuss over him while his mutt ran in excited circles around the fancy dining room table.
“Blitz, come.” He dropped his hand to his side with the command and stroked her head when she sat next to his chair, panting. They both calmed at the contact.
“I knew you were innocent,” Katja said, her voice both kind and outraged. She passed him a bowl.
“Of murder, at least.” He smiled and took the dish, adding a pile of heavenly smelling potato chunks to his plate. “Thank you for this. I haven’t had a good meal in weeks.”
She clucked and waved away his gratitude. “My son lives too far away. I must spoil someone.” Bernd lived in Zürich and made the three-hour drive at least once a month.
“His loss is definitely my gain.” Living on Katja’s property almost made up for being five thousand miles from his own parents. Neither his mom nor dad excelled in the kitchen, but they loved their kids fiercely and openly.
In some ways that made it even harder to face them. They’d absolved him of guilt over his brother’s death, and again when he’d fucked up so badly with Natalie. He didn’t deserve their forgiveness, but he didn’t want to cause them more pain either. Losing another child might destroy them.
Which was why he’d switched into a largely management role after recovering from his injuries.
But then helping Henri had put a target on his back, and he’d bet good money Deschamps would escalate now that Ford’s arrest had failed to reveal Henri’s whereabouts.
If Deschamps grew desperate enough, Katja might be in danger by proximity.
He set down his fork and wiped his mouth with a satiny cloth napkin.
The woman never did anything by half measures, even what should have been a casual dinner.
“You’ve been so good to me and Blitz over the last three years, and I worry about bringing this criminal element to your doorstep.
Would you consider visiting Bernd until things settle down? ”
She scowled. “Leave my house?”
“Just for a few weeks. Spend some time with your grandchildren.” When she hesitated, he placed his hand gently on her thin arm. “Please. I’ll feel better knowing you’re safe.”
“You really think there is a threat.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” He hated that he’d put her at risk too. “I think Deschamps is getting desperate, and desperate men are dangerous.”
Katja reluctantly agreed to leave the next morning, and the rest of their dinner was subdued. She was probably rethinking having him as her tenant, and he couldn’t blame her.
Back home, after taking Blitz for her evening walk, Ford set his apparently worthless security system and sat with her curled at his side on the couch, half dozing in front of a Servette FC game.
Sometime later, a buzz from his phone startled him upright, and he wiped a little drool from his mouth while checking the screen.
112
The European emergency number coming from one of Lehmann’s numbers made his body freeze.
Shit. He stood and rubbed his face, pocketing his cell.
Blitz jumped down and shook, then followed him as he went looking for a burner.
In his office, he removed an untraceable phone from a floor safe and dialed the message service Lehmann used.
Her voice came over the line in German. “The ruse is over. Someone talked.”